Famous Funnies

Famous Funnies was published by Eastern Color between July 1934 and July 1955. There were 218 issues.

Famous Funnies was the first regular newsstand comic book. The series had been preceded by a one-shot,
Famous Funnies - A Carnival of Comics which had been a collaboration between printers Eastern Color and the Dell publishing
company. That one-off was 36 pages long and featured reprints of then-current comic strips. It was either sold or given to customers
(historians aren't quite sure which) at Woolworth's department stores.

Although a moderate success, Dell declined to continue with the title, and so Eastern Color did so on its own. Soon a 68-page
comic, double the size of its predecessor but featuring the same sort of comic strip reprints, could be found on newsstands at a
price of 10 cents. This was cheap enough to be available to even the poorest readers, especially children, even during that difficult
economic time, and so the new title became a success. Its first print run was 200,000; it would reportedly sell 90% of this.

Over the years Famous Funnies would feature dozens of popular comic strips and characters, and contain not only reprints but
all-new material as well. Celebrated artists Al Williamson did his first published work in the series; Frank Frazetta would also
contribute a few covers and some interior art.